


and it's peaceful in the deep

by Argella



Category: IT (2017), IT (2019), IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: (idk maybe the stages of grief), Acceptance, Angst, Denial, Grieving, M/M, Post-Chapter Two, and richie knows it, basically richie grieving aka me grieving through him, eddie deserved better, eddie is dead :((, the word doc was literally titled "sad reddie"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-09-19
Packaged: 2020-10-21 15:26:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20695778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Argella/pseuds/Argella
Summary: When he tells Bill and Bev and Ben that he had to get a later flight out—a mix up by his agent and no, really guys, he’s fine, he’s leaving this shithole as soon as he can, and yes, he’ll still call, and hey, why don’t you guys all come to his next show (you know, when he’s not too fucking traumatized and grieving to do one)—they believe him.Richie returns to the house on Neibolt Street.





	and it's peaceful in the deep

**Author's Note:**

> hey, hi, it's been over a week since i saw ch. 2 and i still think it's so fucked up that they left eddie's body there
> 
> i made a post on tumblr about this that upset people, myself included, and thought, 'hey, why not write about it?'  
title is from florence + the machine's "Never Let Me Go," specifically the (misattributed) line 'and it's peaceful in the deep, 'cause either way you cannot breathe' because yknow....why not

He waits until everyone else has left town before he goes. (In the days leading up, he tries not to think too hard about how one of them isn’t leaving. One of them will never leave. He must repress that thought pretty damn hard for him to end up doing what he does.)

Bill leaves first. He’s stuttering out about his wife and needing to go see her—there’s a small part about a movie tacked onto the end, so small that, if he’d actually been paying attention to Bill when he said it, he would realize Bill almost gave less of a shit about the movie than Richie did. Almost.

Next is Bev and Ben. They don’t leave at the same time, though he knows they have plans to meet up together. (They would have left together, they would have, he just knows it. He wouldn’t have let Eddie leave Derry alone, not this time.)

Ben leaves before her, surprisingly. Derry had held bad memories for all of them, what with being terrorized by a fucking alien being or some shit guised as a clown not once, but twice. Bev especially though. But Ben leaves first. Something about getting his place ready. About taking their time, getting in contact with his lawyer, about her not going to her home just yet, not until Ben can fix things. Or that’s the gist of what Richie catches them murmuring about as they all eat dinner above the library in Mike’s cramped living quarters (They eat, but Richie finds he can’t. Not until he wakes up from a long fitful sleep, the ache in his stomach—the one caused by hunger—too much to ignore.), obviously not wanting the other three to hear too much.

(Richie does still hear some of it. They try to keep it quiet, they really do, but it’s just like the kiss in the quarry—he’d still seen it, even though it had been underwater. Still grits his teeth as he thinks about the plans he won’t get to make, the first kiss he won’t get to experience.)

Mike is last. Mike who had never left Derry, off to Florida, of all fucking places. It’s Mike that proves the trickiest to convince that he’s okay.

The Losers had still been somewhat in tune with each other even after nearly three decades, but Richie had always been good at fooling people. (He hears “fairy” being spit after him in his head, thinks of Pennywise floating above him, taunting him, and knows he hadn’t been able to fool everyone, not about everything—that had been his big fear after all, hadn’t it?)

So when he tells Bill and Bev and Ben that he had to get a later flight out—a mix up by his agent and no, really guys, he’s fine, he’s leaving this shithole as soon as he can, and yes, he’ll still call, and hey, why don’t you guys all come to his next show (you know, when he’s not too fucking traumatized and grieving to do one)—they believe him. They still send him wary looks, squeeze him a little longer than they ever did as kids when they hug him, but they leave all the same, doing their damn hardest to not look back, to move on from this place, again. Only with their memories intact and promises to see each other anywhere that isn’t here. They may have defeated It for good this time, but that could never erase the painful memories that this place holds. They didn’t need It to bring them forth for them. (He’s sure he’ll become all too familiar with those memories even when he’s far away from Derry again. A repeat of the nightmare that he’s just lived down in that well; the one scene from that night that’s been on a loop in his head—behind his eyelids when they close--since it happened.)

But Mike…Mike knows the look of someone reluctant to leave. He’d spent his whole life here after all, digging into the past, the only one to really remember them all, never leaving. Seeing each Loser leave Derry one by one, onto bigger things, forgetting each other and him.

He’s as jokey as he can be when trying to convince him he’ll be fine, but Mike doesn’t bite. He asks if he wants him to postpone his trip, to spend some time here in Derry with him helping him recover or, hell, even rerouting his plans and seeing California first (“They’re both sunny places, aren’t they?”). And Richie feels a pang in his chest over his friend worrying about him. Richie hasn’t had anyone to worry about him in a long time—not anyone that wasn’t paid to at least. (Not since the Losers but especially not since Eddie. Eddie’s worry had always felt so different, something nobody has been able to match even now. Not for Richie.)

But eventually something works. Whether it’s the fiftieth joke or the hundredth sigh, something he does makes Mike relent. A part of him screams at that, at the last of them finally leaving him alone in Derry. They all deserve to forget about It, he knows that, knows that he wants to as well. But why do they all just get to move on as if Eddie isn’t stuck here? Stuck beneath piles of rubble, down in the dark depths of the earth where It had lived and fed? Why do they get to go back to their wives, to each other, to new places and adventures, when Eddie will never get to? Why do they get to move on from Eddie—one of their best friends—just like that, and he doesn’t? (He knows why.)

A small part of him feels bad for not being this distraught over hearing about Stan. He tells himself it’s different—he didn’t see Stan murdered in front of his very eyes. Stan didn’t die trying to save him. He hadn’t gotten the chance to reconnect with Stan. He wasn’t in--.

It was different, but it didn’t mean he cared any less about Stan. Still, the part of him that’s actually able to process other things—the part of his brain that hasn’t found itself dedicated to dissecting that moment over and over again—still feels a little bad that his grief for Stan had found itself pushed to the side so easily. 

When Mike has left, texting their new group chat to let them all know he had safely boarded the plane (Richie responding with a few complaints about what a bummer it is his flight had to be so late, but not enough to overdo it) he goes.

Everyone in Derry knows the way to the Neibolt house. It wouldn’t have mattered if Richie had never stepped foot inside of the place—if It had never happened to them—everyone just knew about the dilapidated old house. Even so, he knew he’d never forget the way there, even if he came back to Derry a hundred times with his memory wiped clean of It. It had become engrained in there.

He drives there now, alone for the first time. When he gets there, he parks the car on the side of the street, across from what is left of the house. The city had been informed about the collapse, chalked it up to old infrastructure, and promptly left it alone. Glad to have wiped their hands of it finally; the eyesore that really must have been fucking with all of Derry’s small-town charm.

Flashes of the house go through his mind, in three different states, all progressively worse. In one second, he’s standing in front of it as a kid with his friends, bikes in a pile in front of the gate. Eddie with his fanny pack, right before his arm had ended up in a cast. Bev with her hair chopped short. Stan and Mike with nervous expressions. Ben, short and stocky, eyes flitting to Beverly every now and again, something that hasn’t changed. And Bill. Always the leader. Bill ready to charge in and take on It; wanting to save the many at the risk of the few.

He knows he’s bitter. It’s not Bill’s fault Eddie was dead. Not really. They all knew the dangers going into that house, every time. (Only why had it always been Eddie?) But the darkest parts of him that are still grieving can’t help but wonder what might have happened if Bill hadn’t rushed them into it the other night. If they had had more time to prepare or, fuck, to get Eddie’s face looked at. Maybe then he wouldn’t have been there at least, sitting in some emergency room getting his face stitched up instead, and it would have just been the five of them.

The younger Bill in his mind suddenly morphs into the older one, how he looks now. In his forties and still ready to charge in, leading the Losers. They’re missing one, and soon to be missing another.

Just as quickly as they came, those images disappear, and all he’s left looking at is that fucking pile of rubble. He clenches his jaw and turns to his rental car, grabbing a flashlight he’d lifted from Mike’s place out of the passenger seat. It’s evening now, the sun beginning to set beneath the trees, the chirping of crickets thrumming in the air.

Realistically, Richie can tell he’s going through some form of disassociation. Has been since the drive over, his detachment worsening upon seeing where the house stood. (Had it looked this bad in the dark that night?) He feels his feet moving as if on autopilot, stumbling against the pavement and into what’s left of the yard, with no care for whether or not the ground is stable.

His legs give out, knees buckling beneath him until they hit the ground, the impact reverberating throughout his body. The flashlight falls to the earth with a soft thump.

“I’m sorry,” he chokes out, tears pricking at his eyes. It all comes rushing out. “I’m so sorry, I tried to come sooner, I tried Eds, I really did, they wouldn’t let me.” He wipes harshly at the now falling tears on his face. “I’m gonna get you out man, I promise. Okay? You won’t have to stay in the dark. I know you hate the dark.”

He’s suddenly crawling forward to close the short distance between himself and the start of the pile, hands and jean-clad knees dragging through the dirt. When he reaches it, still kneeling, he doesn’t stop to come up with a plan, just dives headfirst into it, yanking haphazardly at wood and twisted metal, throwing pieces into a pile behind him.

(Years later, when he’s grown used to reliving that night in his nightmares, he will realize just how very far down they had been, how deep It’s lair had gone. He would know then how absolutely futile that trying to dig down there—by hand no less—was. But now all he can think of is being ten and having a sleepover at Bill’s with Stan and Eddie—a rare thing on account of Eddie’s mom. Bill and Stan had long fallen asleep and Richie himself was just on the brink of it when he realized that, beside him, Eddie was still tense and awake. He’d stayed up talking with him for another hour until Eddie had managed to fall asleep, not mentioning it the next day and keeping it to himself even a few months later when he spotted a nightlight in Eddie’s room.)

(There are a lot of things he didn’t mention to Eddie, he thinks bitterly.)

He keeps going, dirt shifting as he drags unwilling pieces of that house away. Part of his mind is flitting through tools that will be needed—_something for digging, something big, something that can go deep_—but the most prominent voice in his head, the one pushing him through this impossible task, just whispers, _Eddie, Eddie Eddie_. It’s that voice that makes him ignore the sweat dripping down his forehead, stinging his eyes, mixing with the dried tears that have left his face feeling tight; the voice ignoring his quickly burning arms.

He jerks upright to his feet, tripping toward the progress he’s made to yank at a larger piece of wood in the pile—_like cleaning up the pieces of a rotted corpse_, he thinks, letting out a shaky breath. He grabs onto the board, tugging to dislodge it, his motions jerky and uncoordinated with fatigue, when he stumbles backwards. The board comes with him, landing on his stomach and knocking the wind from him, while his right hand reaches out behind him to stop his fall, instead connecting with the end of a nail jutting out from a nearby piece of wood he’d already put to the side.

“Motherfucker,” he yells out, the nail cleanly piercing through his palm upon impact, the most he’s been able to feel all night.

He can feel his breath coming out in short pants, eyes wide, adrenaline rushing through him alongside shock as he quickly jerks his hand back up, the nail exiting the same way it entered. He bites down on the inside of his cheek, hard, drawing the metallic tang of blood.

He lifts the now shaking hand to his face, seeing blood oozing from the wound through the thick lenses of his glasses.

All of a sudden, he can hear Eddie’s frantic voice, clear as day. “What the fuck man, wrap your hand up, quick! You need to go to the emergency room before you get tetanus. If you wait too long, you’ll get a fever and, and your muscles will start twitching and shit, and you’ll die.”

His lips begin turning upward into a smile, quickly overtaken by a grimace, while his eyes close, focusing on Eddie’s admonishing tone of voice. A voice he’ll never hear again.

He’d always thought that when one part of your body was hurting, that if you hurt another, you would no longer be able to focus on the original pain. Well, that was fucking wrong, because it’s like putting that nail through his hand heightened the rest of his senses, and he can feel the wound in his hand on top of his aching arms and the pounding headache he apparently has.

He lifts his left hand away from where it’s putting pressure on the right, struggling to lift it up enough and tear off a strip of his shirt. When he’s managed a poor attempt at wrapping up his palm, he just sits, unable to make himself get up and leave for the hospital.

(He had fucking waited. He waited for them all to leave. He was the only one willing to go back for Eddie, he’d promised. He can’t leave him down there.)

He doesn’t know how long he actually sits there, hand on fire, arms weighed down like lead. It had been dark when he’d stabbed himself. His flashlight still sits a few feet away, unused, his eyes having grown adjusted to the dark and dim lighting from the moon as the sun had set. It feels like it’s only been a few minutes but, in reality, it must have been hours. The air is cooler, and he can hear the chirping of birds, as if heralding the sun and, with it, a new day. He shakes his head, astounded at how he’s managed to completely zone out, sitting through the pain of his hand. He had thought about nothing--it’s like an entire night has been stolen from him. Had he fallen asleep; eyes open? No. He couldn’t have. No way would he have had a dreamless sleep, especially not here.

It’s the longest he’s gone without thinking of Eddie since that night, he realizes. He can’t help but laugh. How fucking ironic that he’d finally be able to escape from the thoughts haunting him when he’s literally sitting atop Eddie’s grave.

His eyes roam back over the pile of rubble that was once a house. He swallows heavily, eyes closing as his mind finally catches up with his actions. _Impossible_, it whispers. _Literally fucking impossible_.

He feels more tears springing free now, amazed that he has any left in him, and presses his palms hard into both eyes, relishing in the pain he feels from the pressure on them and the fire radiating from his hand. He can feel something sticky on his cheek, blood most likely.

_Such an idiot_, he thinks. He wonders what might have happened if only he’d stopped trying to cling to Eddie’s body, instead using his energy to get the others to carry him. To bring him back up then. The rational part of him knows that wouldn’t have been possible—they didn’t have the time or the energy. (That darker, worse part of him wonders what would have happened if he’d have been able to resist his friends pulling him away from Eddie—to stop himself from following them out as the rocks rained down. Would they have come back for their bodies if it was two of them? Was two the magic number that Bill thought was worth risking it for?)

He shakes his head, telling himself to stop redirecting his anger at his friends. The thing he should really be angry at is dead, destroyed forever.

_And Eddie is below, forever. There’s no way of getting him, Richie. That’s where he has to stay._

“It’s just a body. It’s just a body. It’s just a body,” he chants lowly to himself, over and over again.

It’s fucked up, ultimately. Eddie will have to stay buried there. There’s nothing Richie can do about it. Even if the other Losers were with him, digging, there’s nothing they could do about it either. And, everyone ends up in the dark eventually, right? Whether in a casket or in a furnace; in a shallow grave or deep down in the lair of some demented space clown. It’s not like Eddie could literally see himself sitting in the dark. What mattered was how Richie was viewing it. He’d been projecting his own thoughts—how he thought his Eddie would feel stuck down there. And yeah, it’s super fucked up. Eddie would agree if he could. But he would just have to try to get over it—to try his hardest to stop remembering Eddie’s lifeless body, all alone as those rocks came down, and instead remembering him how he knew him best—things about Eddie that his mind had slowly been reminding him of since they had returned to Derry.

With a cast on his arm. With his fanny pack. His polo shirts and too short shorts. A sneaky grin on his face. His mouth downturned when he was pouting. His hands, dragging his inhaler up to his mouth, panic settling on his face over some minor incident. His laughter as he jumped into the quarry with his friends, splashing each other on a hot summer day. His calm smile as he looked back at Richie, pedaling down the road on their bikes with their friends.

The older Eddie. His face more weathered, his spirit more beaten, but still the same Eddie. Those same wide eyes filled with laughter. That same bossy tone and sarcastic attitude that would come out when Richie would say something dumb.

(Later, he will think of an even older Eddie. The one he might have had. But for now, his mind spares him that thought.)

He looks a few yards to his left, spotting a familiar patch of wildflowers. He has a faint memory of there being more around the overgrown yard than there are now. He stumbles to his feet, weak from all of the physical exertion and lack of food over the past few days yet, somehow, he manages to reach them. He yanks a few out of the ground with his good hand, roots and all.

He stands in front of what was once Neibolt house, not daring to kneel again lest he be unable to get back up. Setting the flowers down gently, he closes his eyes, taking in the gentle rays of the sun beginning to peak past the horizon.

“I love you Eds. Always have,” he lets out on a sigh. “I’m not sure when loving you turned into being in love with you but…I just know I’ve felt that way for a very long time. Even if I forgot. And maybe if I had told you, you wouldn’t have cared. Or maybe you would have. Or maybe you would have been grossed out, fuck, I don’t know.” He lets out a humorless laugh. “I like to think you would have felt the same but…. I’m just sorry I never got the chance to tell you before everything happened. So, I’m telling you now. My agent always did tell me to work on my timing,” he lets out a weak grin. “You’ll be okay here.” He shakes his head up and down slowly, as if reassuring himself. “Your body might be here, but you’ll always be with me Eds, promise.”

He clenches his jaw and allows himself to stand there for one last moment. Tears in his eyes, he swallows down the lump in his throat and hurries away, back toward his car. He yanks open the door, and plops into the seat, letting out a strangled cry before starting the engine, ready to get away from this house once and for all.

\--

It’s only a day and a half later when he finds himself finally making his way out of town, right hand bandaged up, arm still sore from the tetanus shot he’d received at the hospital. When he pulls to a slow stop on the bridge, it’s with that hand that he puts the car into park. Leaving the engine on, he gets out and makes his way toward the side of the bridge; a spot he hasn’t stood in in decades.

The letters are still there, well faded into the wood with time, but still legible. He would’ve been able to find the spot with his eyes closed. As he crouches in front of the wooden planks, he feels it all rushing back to him. The guilt, the shame. The fear. He thinks about Stanley’s letter that his agent had had forwarded to him. He thinks about being brave.

As he presses his knife back into the carved R and E, separated only by a plus sign, he doesn’t think of Eddie’s body. He doesn’t think of his final resting place. He thinks about Eddie and all of the time they did have. He thinks of Eddie, his best friend. Eddie, the first boy he ever loved. He just thinks of Eddie.

He lets out a shaky breath, looks at that R+E one last time, searing it into his memory once again, and turns back toward his car, deciding to be brave.

**Author's Note:**

> lowkey hate myself for this, but i hope you guys managed to enjoy it in...some way
> 
> this is also on my tumblr (ladystvrk) where i mostly post gendrya/asoiaf and (now) hits of reddie


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